


thrust in thy sickle, and reap

by snagov



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Desire, Fantasizing, M/M, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Tension, mentions of francis crozier/james fitzjames, service top lieutenant edward little, the mortifying ordeal of vanilla fantasies, two men and a private storeroom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27351400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snagov/pseuds/snagov
Summary: Thomas Jopson has a keen eye and misses very few things.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 22
Kudos: 121





	thrust in thy sickle, and reap

_Who, squatting upon the ground,  
_ _Held his heart in his hands,|  
_ _And ate of it.  
_ _I said, “Is it good, friend?”  
_ _“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;_

_“But I like it  
_ _“Because it is bitter,  
_ _“And because it is my heart.”  
_ _-_ Stephen Crane, _In The Desert_

* * *

He had grown up on a dead-end road.

As a boy, Thomas would be sent to the shops. He'd gone with chatter in his mouth, sick of London and wanting the edge of the world. The butcher’s apprentice had thought that he should travel and told that to him when he purchased his meat. Cheap cuts, always, fit for a tailor's salary. Ground round and whole chicken. Thomas had liked to break the chickens down himself, sliding his knife along the known edges and demarcations of the body, knowing where to cut through the tendons, how to take it apart. His hands were always very cold after and he washed them three times to get them clean again, scrubbing the skin until it grew raw.

When there had been an opening for the Discovery Service, Thomas hadn't hesitated to sign his name. 

There is an art, Thomas Jopson believes, to stewardship. To perfecting shadowiness, drifting from shade to solid and back again. The good servant is ever-present and unremarkable, sliding in without sound and leaving disruption at the door. Francis has told him many times that it’s almost eerie, preternatural even, the way Thomas knows exactly the moment Captain Crozier will awake and come with a crisp knock upon his cabin door and a tray of hot tea in his hands not more than ten minutes after. It is not occult, of course, but Thomas merely smiles and never dissuades him of the notion. 

In truth, the good steward is the student of psychology and study. Thomas has been with Francis Crozier for nearly ten years now and has made the habits of the captain a personal interest. He knows that if Crozier had gone to bed drunk, he would wake a full hour later than if he had been sober. If he had gone to bed angry, a full hour earlier. Thomas can inspect the whiskey bottle on the sideboard, noting the discrepancy from when he had last left the captain for the evening, and choose whether or not a headache powder added to the morning tray might not go amiss. At the state of the papers on Crozier’s desk, the way he had kicked off his boots, the look of the man’s eyes, Thomas can estimate his mood quickly and adapt accordingly. He might visit the lower deck on his way to return the tray, quietly commenting to Terror’s lieutenants that _the weather seems poor today._ The wardroom officers have quickly learnt his code, grateful to the young steward for knowing which way the wind blows. 

So then, it’s only a matter of simple psychology. Thomas, tilting his head slightly with his finely-tuned pale eyes zeroed in on a subject, has weighed and measured every man aboard the ships. Some are easier than others; he asks Irving for his thoughts on a passage in _John_ and comments to Hodgson that he’d put in a word with Diggle about the roast tonight. Protective of Crozier, he pays special attention to the vitriol that soaks his commentary about Commander Fitzjames; when Fitzjames is present, Thomas interrupts less and positions himself in a task near the Great Cabin, quietly dissuading anyone from knocking upon the door. 

But there is one man who mystifies him. 

Thomas cannot quite make sense of Lieutenant Edward Little. Reserved and reticent, as Crozier’s first lieutenant, Thomas finds himself frequently in the same room, both serving the captain in different capacities. Little is quiet, standing or sitting very still, his hands either firmly held in his lap or tightly behind his back, always at some attention. There is a heavy, melancholy set to his dark brow and a tenseness to his jaw. His eyes, larger than they have any right to be and dark as pitch, are sad and steady, impossible to navigate, betraying nothing of his deeper impulses or emotions than a removed misery. 

It’s the mystery that draws Thomas’ attention first. He makes no pretense to himself of being a moral creature, though he’s careful, never lapsing while at sea. It’s on land that he indulges his perversions. Inverted and hungry, Thomas slips his name off and frequents molly houses, finding other men with just as much to lose. It’s here that he applies his study of psychology just as well; he can tell at ten paces what a man’s weakness is, what guilty pleasures he has, what foul fantasies he jerks himself off to. He had not had to spend long in Crozier’s company than to know the man had a weakness for men himself, typically proud and haughty men with fine bones and fine curls. (Thomas had known before the ships had sailed that Fitzjames would be trouble for Crozier from the start.) He had not had to speak with Fitzjames long, hearing the breathless, bitter comment of Crozier’s opinion of him, to know that Fitzjames was also inverted and spent his nights with one hand between his thighs, coming off to imaginations of a superior’s praise. He has Mr. Blanky figured as a man with an easy, open relationship with his wife and an oral fixation. Lieutenant Irving never touches himself, not when God is watching, instead only finding guilty release in his sleep. But Little - Jopson cannot account for Little, not with the impassive mask on his features, showing only a well of loneliness in dark eyes. 

At night, with the blankets drawn over him and a furtive, quick hand and nimble fingers on his cock, Thomas pulls at himself, running through imaginations of how Edward Little might look stripped bare and cheeks red from arousal. Perhaps the man has left a lover at home? A woman? It could be possible, as stiff and reserved as he is, that Little’s sexual behavior is just as appropriate and honorable as his officership. But something itches under Thomas’ skin and he cannot quite place it. There are moments when Little’s gaze lingers on him, hooded and heavy, and Thomas can make no sense of it. 

At first, Thomas wants to see him shatter. Stumble. In bed, his hand flies over his cock and he grits his teeth, imagining himself slipping into Little’s cabin. How Little’s dark eyes would widen at Thomas’ silent entry, the slip of the coat and shirt from Thomas’s shoulders, how Thomas would drop to his knees and open his mouth, pulling Little’s hot, thick prick free and swallowing it whole. Would it be familiar to Little? Is there a secret layer of filth and grime under that pale skin and perfect posture, one that might be at this very moment picturing Thomas’ mouth strained open, one rough thumb moving over Thomas’ cheek, feeling for the pressure of his own dick within? Or is there a blank slate? Tabula rasa? Is Little just as inexperienced as it seems; that if Thomas were to push him back on the mattress and trail a hand down his belly, cupping his cock in a hot hand, he’d come in an instant?

He lays back, staring at the dark boards of Terror’s ceiling, feeling the tip of his wretchedly hard cock graze his own belly. In surrender, heat balancing between his shoulder blades, his hand finds himself and he palms the underside and covers himself in his own slick, pulling himself to orgasm on the idea of sitting Edward Little in a chair and himself atop, sinking hotly onto the spit of the lieutenant’s unused cock. 

The next day, Thomas brushes past Little in a passageway and the lieutenant freezes, his body hot and stock-still, allowing the steward through. Thomas spends the night furiously frigging himself until he worries he might chafe. This time, he imagines that Little is an experienced fuck, that he might invite Thomas in with a steady hand and knowing look, that he’ll wrap a hand around Thomas’ throat as he comes, choking the air out of him. 

_Christ._ Thomas thinks he’s losing his mind. 

Again. It happens again and again, their hands meeting in reaching for a pen or a decanter of whisky. As the door to Crozier’s cabin remains closed to all but a rare few, Thomas finds his evenings spent in the company of Doctor MacDonald, Captain Fitzjames, and Lieutenant Little, each looking in on their captain’s convalescence, a different terror etched into each face. 

“You should get some rest, sir,” Thomas says one night, bringing a glass of port to Fitzjames. The Erebus commander looks half-ill, his dark curls wild and haphazard from James’ own hands running through them too many times, a habit Thomas has long learned betrays the commander’s worry. 

“In time, Jopson,” Fitzjames says absently, still staring at the closed door of Crozier’s berth. Fitzjames chews the inside of his mouth, another tell, and finally looks up. “Has he ever - before?” 

Thomas shakes his head. “Not like this, sir.” 

“My brother - “ Fitzjames begins, then stops, seemingly angry with himself. 

“It happens to the best of men.”

“Does it?” Fitzjames hesitates. "He's a miserable man and he'll make the world miserable if it tries to be his friend." His voice darkens, dropping further. "I don't know why I try."

 _Because you see it in him too, I know you do. It hurts, but it's good, loving him._ “I will send word as soon as the captain wakes,” Thomas murmurs. “Unless you’d prefer to - “ He gestures at the cot in the corner of the Great Cabin. It’s his own cot, set up so that Thomas might be always at Crozier’s immediate disposal should his condition turn. 

Fitzjames flushes. “I would not put you out of your own bed.”

“It would be no trouble, sir.” It wouldn’t be. They both know that. Jopson has another bed, one he’s used for years on this expedition and one he is likely keen to get back to. He can see Fitzjames’ mind turning as he chews his lip, weighing how it might be a relief for the both of them: Jopson to rest in his bed and Fitzjames to sleep with Crozier in easy distance. For a mad half-second, Thomas wants to rest a hand on the commander’s shoulder and assure him that his complicated love for Francis Crozier is well understood. 

“Perhaps - “ Fitzjames says. “For one night.”

“I’ll be here before he wakes, sir.”

Fitzjames looks grateful. “As long as it’s no trouble.”

“No trouble at all, sir. I shall fetch fresh linens now.” 

* * *

Later, with Fitzjames’ bed made up and Thomas’ nerves frayed, he’ll blame the circumstances for his actions. He had left the Great Cabin with a strange hot knot in his throat and a storm in his blood, feeling his pockets for his keys. He needed to get something out. Anything. To cry, to scream, to yell - his own hammock among the men would afford no privacy, so he’d slunk to the lower decks, picking his way in the dark to the captain’s storeroom, something he alone possessed the keys to. 

No one would be looking for him now, at least for the next few hours. 

God, his cock aches. It has leaked into his linen shirt, tucked around himself, into his wool trousers. Thomas Jopson has always been one of those men who found their frustrations manifesting between their thighs. Shame and ache, misery and anger - each of these arouse his wretched cock from its slumber, leaving it long and hot, ready for an unrepentant touch. He likes when he can wield it like a knife, plunging into another’s body. He likes it when someone holds him down and sucks it off. _It’s time for you to come,_ a lover had said once, _whether you want to or not._ His fantasies lately have been shameful fixations on Lieutenant Little. How Little, with dark eyes and baritone, might trap him in the wardroom one night, running a firm hand over Thomas’ trousers. _Is there a duty you’re forgetting, Jopson?_ Little would ask with heated eyes. _Tending to your superiors?_ Little would push him up against a wall and work him open on elegant hands, before shoving a hot, living dick into his body. Thomas’ hand works faster, leaning against the shelves of green glass bottles and china plates, desperate to be touched. Three years, it’s been three goddamn years. 

Or would Little come to him, bending Thomas over a chair, telling him that he alone owns Thomas’ orgasm? He’d work an adept hand between Thomas’ thighs and place a bowl beneath his cock, slowly milking the come from him like milk from a cow. 

_God above,_ Thomas thinks, his hand moving faster. God, he’s close. 

Worst of all, the thing Thomas only imagines when he is either miserable or on the verge of his climax, that he might slip into Edward Little’s cabin silently. Dark eyes would watch him and strong arms would lift the woolen blankets up, making room for him in the narrow bed. He would kiss ferociously, desperately, lingering at Thomas’ pulse and leaving warm in kisses down his jaw. When he worked Thomas open, a few fingers at a time, he would watch Thomas’ face with a broken expression. It would be Thomas he wanted, not only his body. He would fill Thomas slowly, moving like a steady wave, beating love into every thrust. _I love you,_ Little would say in the dark. Thomas shudders, his hand moving faster, feeling depraved. Why does it feel filthier yet, imagining that Edward Little might kiss him on the mouth and be gentle about it? That he might stay after for an hour or two, holding Thomas flush against his chest, warming him through?

In the morning, the two sit alone in the Great Cabin as the captain sleeps in the small cabin just beyond. Thomas feels hot and strange. Hot on his face, his chest, his spine, the tips of his very ears. The room feels as if it’s on fire. Thomas glances up to the bulkheads. It isn’t. Still, Little sits stoic and silent in his chair, a report in his hands.

Sometimes, when Thomas looks, Edward Little is already looking back. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Thomas often finds himself standing at the gunwale, remembering open water. The world is heavy here, laden with ice and snow.He remembers his pitiful mother suddenly, how she would never stand in front of an oven, worried about the fumes. He remembers his father’s Sunday best, a pressed coat and fine hat. _What did you learn about today,_ his father would ask, the three of them walking back from services. Thomas had learned about Hell. How the wicked would be spitroasted through their mouths and bellies, turning forever in the eternal fires of damnation. When they were home, Thomas had taken his Bible and shoved it deep in a drawer, where he couldn’t see it.

He rubs at his eyes.

It’s late. He should sleep. Thomas turns and finds Little standing several paces behind him, hands behind his back and that same impassive expression on his face. There had been a time when the careful blankness of the expression had infuriated Thomas, leaving Little as a cipher; but the long years have muddied the waters of known and unknown. Thomas knows now that Little uses these expressions like a closet door, hiding the trouble within from view. 

“Lieutenant,” Thomas says, inclining his head. 

“Mr. Jopson,” Little murmurs, allowing a small smile to trouble his mouth. “Nice moon,” Little continues, drawing closer to the gunwale. To Thomas himself. Thomas stares at the lieutenant's open mouth, at the way he licks his own lower lip and the spit that shines after.

They watch the moon and stars for a long time, shoulder to shoulder, neither speaking another word. When Thomas disappears to his bed at last, he digs his teeth into his lower lip and imagines it might be Little’s own bite.

* * *

It's torturous, the way he wants the lieutenant, the way he cannot make heads nor tails of him.

He closes his eyes and a blotchy flush rises. The lieutenant is never far from his nightly fantasies. Thomas tangled in his bedsheets, his dark hair sticking to his sweaty face, imagining laying Little out before him, tonguing down the planes of his body like a knife. Taking the man apart, piece by piece by piece. Imagining being bent over himself, placed on hands and knees and slicked up by rough hands that give no quarter, spitroasted on his body and tugged at without art. Perhaps Little would finish, spilling inside of him and falling asleep without looking nor caring if Thomas had come himself. Thomas would wrap his own hand around himself, slick with Little's spill, and pull himself off to the sleeping man next to him. He wouldn’t deserve more than this. It would be enough.

Would he want to be lashed? Thomas has laid whips to men’s bare skin before, turning flat, smooth nakedness into a cacophony of pinks and reds, purples and violets. He’d kissed the aches after and rubbed menthol salve into them too. 

Would he want to be tied? Thomas finds himself studying Little’s wrists when the opportunity presents itself, imagining which ropes and knots would do best. 

Would he want to be served? Thomas could do that too. Has done that even. Little might seat himself at a sturdy oak desk, legs apart, allowing Thomas to hold him in his mouth as he worked. A good servant, a good steward, is always at the ready, whatever a man might require.

These are his usual fantasies. Yet, someone had told Thomas once that the deepest pleasure, if you push through, is found in the midst of pain. It had taken him some time to understand this but found it some years later when a lover had bit his neck and torn the skin. He'd found himself pressing on the bruise for days after, hearing the pain sing through his body, trying to remember how it had felt. 

(Sometimes, he pushes on the bruise. The thought that aches. Little would press him hard to a wall and kiss him while he came, whispering to him after. He would stay the night. The next. The one after. All the days would be warm.) 

* * *

“Thank you, Mr. Jopson,” Little says. His voice is low, scraped dry with fatigue. The past three weeks have worn on them both. 

“Of course, sir. Is there anything else you require, sir?”

Little shakes his head. A litany of maps cover the desk before him, Little stares unblinkingly at the white paper and black ink, their positions drawn and drawn and redrawn a thousand times over, as if on the second, third, or hundredth glance, they might spy a way out previously missed. “Only sleep.”

Thomas nods. He dusts the shelves, polishes the crystal. At length, he glances up to Little, finding a heavy stare looking back. He shifts, redirecting to his work once more, loading a crate with linens and supplies to be returned to the captain’s storeroom. 

“Do you need help?”

“I’m quite alright, sir.” 

“But - would it be easier, if I helped?”

For this, Thomas will always blame the exhaustion. “More hands always make for quicker work, as my mother always said, sir.”

Little quickly rises, his dark expression as imperturbable as ever, and follows Thomas through the narrow passageway of Terror to the captain’s personal storeroom, just beyond the lieutenants’ cabins and before the fo'c's'le.

“Where shall I put this?”

Thomas gestures to the table in the corner, closing the door behind himself as habit. “I can sort that, sir, if you’d set it here.” 

It’s a strangeness that fills the room like a poison, a miasma, a perfume. They are alone. They have never been alone before, not like this. A ship with 129 men packed aboard rarely makes for quiet moments. They have been alone only in the briefest way: in passing through a room, on watch above decks, in the Great Cabin with Crozier ten feet away. 

Little stands in his officer’s habit, firm and erect, his face passive, just a quiet heat banked in his regard. 

For this too, Thomas will blame the exhaustion. 

“Why do you watch me?”

Little’s face goes pale. “I - “

“You do, you know. All the time. When I’m working, at meals, on watch - Have I done something to offend you? Or to shake your trust in me… sir?” 

It’s fascinating, watching how Little’s tie and stock rumble, the throat concealed beneath swallowing uneasily. He shakes his head, dark hair wild and eyes gone wide. It’s beautiful, how he’s let his hair grow longer in the past months; Thomas finds himself fascinated by the way it ghosts over his face, at the soft hair that grows along his cheeks and chin. 

“If I have, Mr. Jopson, I must apologize - “ Edward shifts, his jaw tensing. “It’s tiredness. We’re all feeling it, I suppose.”

Thomas steps nearer. He might be lashed for this, hanged even, if he’s calculated wrong. (He doesn’t believe he’s calculated wrong.) 

“Might I be of service?” Thomas breathes, drawing very close. He is six inches from Little’s chest, face tilted upward. If pressed, he might state he was simply being helpful, that nothing untoward was meant. Little’s eyes shake, darting over Thomas’ face, begging explanation.

He licks his lip uneasily, never looking away from Thomas’ mouth. 

“Might you?” Little asks softly. “How?”

Thomas wraps one hand around the back of Edward Little’s neck, reeling him in. He kisses Edward with one hand in his hair and the other pressed between strong, sturdy thighs, palming the fierce cockstand he knew had to be hidden there, deep beneath layers of dark wool. 

“Christ,” Edward whispers, shuddering into Thomas’ deft touch. His fingers, strong and square, run over the outline of Edward's prick, finding the ridges of his body. Edward swallows, glancing at the door. Nothing comes. Not a knock, not a whisper. Not a living soul around. Just them, the two of them. 

“How do you want me?” Thomas finally asks, digging out the question that has burned him alive. _On my knees, my back, my side? Over me? Under me? Something innocent or depraved?_ His fingers toy with the dark curls, finding them softer than he’d expected. 

“Tell me,” Edward gasps, his breathing stuttering as Thomas noses at his jaw, his ear, the hint of throat afforded above his tie and stock. “Tell me what you want me to do.” 

Thomas glances up, stilling. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Edward confesses. Thomas rubs his hand firmly over the cock trapped between them, feeling the heat spill through the layers. He tilts his head and kisses Edward again, making another guess. 

“There’s a bottle of oil on the far shelf. You will get that and then fuck me right here, against the wall, until I come. Do you understand?” The cock in his palm twitches and shudders and Thomas knows at once that he has finally guessed right. He leans in further, pressing his mouth to Edward’s ear. “You’ll come when I tell you, after I’ve had my fill of you.”

“Oh my God,” Edward hisses, shuddering in Thomas’ hands. 

Edward’s hands shake while he gets the oil, and Thomas hears the glass bottle gently clattering on the shelf, wincing in hope that no one is listening to the sounds of the storeroom. Edward’s hands shake on Thomas’ clothing, pushing his shirt up with jerky, ruined motions, trailing terrified fingertips over his pale back, sides, belly. His mouth shakes when he kisses Thomas’ bared skin, as if he’d imagined this over and over and over again and reaches for Thomas as if expecting to feel his body dissolving beneath his hands at any moment. His fingers shake inside of Thomas, never looking away from the rapture on Thomas’ face. 

“Now,” Thomas says. His command undercut by his own wrecked voice. The oil is slippery and slick, dripping from his body. Edward breaches him slowly, shivering behind him, as Thomas shudders against the shelves, forehead pressed hard into woodgrain. He groans and Edward stills at once, hands twitching at his sides. 

“Does it hurt?” (Yes, but he cannot explain that, not yet. That the edge of the knife of pleasure is cut with pain. That a cake is best with a little salt added, that chocolate pairs well with bitter wine.) 

“Oh my god, keep going.”

Behind him, Thomas cannot see Edward’s face but he can imagine it, how Edward might be biting his lip as he sinks in further, how his dark brows might be drawn together, a hot fury in his black eyes. Someday, they might have longer. Imagine it, a wide bed and hours to spare. A night, a day, a week, a month. He would have Edward above him, face to face, and command that Edward fuck him slowly, never varying the pace, never looking away. 

“Faster,” Thomas whispers. “Put your hand on me.”

Edward’s wide grip finds Thomas’ bared cock. His fingers are coarse and Thomas hisses when they touch him, gathering him up at last. 

“Do you think of me?” Thomas asks. “ Tell me. Did you think about this?”

“God, every bloody day,” Edward mutters, finding his voice between ruts. “Do you have any idea - you drive me to distraction. I didn’t wish to - foul - you. Didn’t imagine you’d ever - “ 

“Fuck you against a wall? Spread my legs for you? Right here, where anyone might come in and see us. That I’d go to my bed after, still wet from you?”

“Christ, your _mouth_ ,” Edward hisses, desperate and twitching. He stills suddenly, breathing hard. “I’m so close, Thomas, I’m - Please.” 

“No. Not yet.” He grinds down and feels Edward regroup, moving slightly slower than before, trying to hold off his climax. “Here,” he whispers, taking pity on the poor wretch, his hand cupping the one between his own legs, showing Edward exactly how to move and where to touch.

"Harder," he commands. That steady grip palms his cock fiercely, pressing fingertips into the meat of him so hard it aches. Thomas swallows a moan and tries to keep what little dignity he has, clinging to it like a piece of driftwood. When he comes, he twists his head to the side, digging his teeth into his own forearm. 

“Please,” Edward begs, hot and hard and ruined within him. 

“Come for me.” 

With a thrust and a half-choked sob, Edward buries himself in Thomas and comes, forehead pressed hard into Thomas’ shoulder blade. They stand together for a long moment before Edward slips from him. In the white haze of afterward, he doesn’t know how he’s come to stand in Edward’s arms, head on his shoulder, breathing into his waistcoat. Edward’s hands stroke his hair. There’s a mouth at his temple. There’s a mouth at his own, kissing him gently. 

It is the foulest thing he's ever done, being kissed after. Being held tight. Thomas has a tremor himself now. Edward stands firm, his body becalmed, holding Thomas' bones. Close your eyes. Remember this. It aches, how he loves this man, the way cold loves their bones.

He will pull out the memory later, alone in the dark, and press on it like a bruise.


End file.
